This specifically details exactly what I mean: these commercials somehow convinced people that each of these features were brand new.
Nobody thought the *features* were new - They weren't. What was new was being able to *use* those features much easier than ever before. Like I said, I had those features in my previous phone - But I didn't use them most of the time because it was such a pain in the ass.
You may be onto something - maybe Apple had no "marketing strategy" and instead, otherwise intelligent people went full retard and thought it was brand new, but I doubt the accuracy of your insinuation.
I've been an Apple-watcher for a long time, and Apple has traditionally had a truly inept marketing department. They've gotten a helluva lot better than they were in the 80's and 90's, but they're certainly not fooling anybody.
I guess my point is that Apple has made their huge fan base by creating great products, not using great marketing to sell inferior products. And when I say great products, I mean products that accomplish their users' goals easily and in an enjoyable fashion, not ones that check as many boxes as possible in a brochure.
You mean 10 years before the iPhone came out? Here's what phones were like right before the iPhone came out:
Thank you for making my point for me. A stylus? Are you kidding? Harder to use, easy to lose, adds at least two steps to any operation (pulling out and stowing the stylus), and for big guys like me, hurts your hand after holding it for a while. Yech!
And let's not forget what the old mobile web was like. Horrid.
And that tiny keyboard. The iPhone works great for those of us with fat fingers. Those mini-Chiclet keyboards, well, I'd have to use the damn stylus on the keyboard!
There was a calculated reason for forgetting that MMS was (and still is, btw) the defacto method of transmitting photographs between devices?
I don't know about that. I had never transmitted a pic via MMS before the iPhone either. I emailed 'em. And that worked just as well on the iPhone as it did on anything else, and allowed me to send them to anyone, not just the people I knew had an MMS-capable phone.
Or choosing a radio that left data users 5 years or more behind their competitors or current feature set?
I'm assuming you're talking about it using EDGE? Exactly like the phone you posted about? At the time the iPhone was introduced, 3G networks were very new and only available in large cities.
I don't buy it. It was lazy, and it was proof that Apple could hand down a pile of manure and still have people fawn over it. Again - there was nothing spectacular about the iPhone except the fruit on the back and the new touch screen that was more accurate.
And the UI. That made all the difference in the world. I laughed at all the companies hyping touchscreen phones after the iPhone came out. They completely missed the point, as you have - It wasn't the touchscreen, it was the UI!
You can't argue that what came before the iPhone was just as good - The iPhone changed the world of cell phones. The smartphone market expanded at an insane rate, and the iPhone and its offspring (Yeah, Android) took over the market. Between the two, they're well over 90%, and they've effectively killed off the previous #1 smartphone maker. Look at the state of things now vs. 6 years ago when the iPhone came out - It's a different world.
1. The camera is not as good as many of its lower priced competitors
Depends how you define "not as good." I'm guessing you'll go straight for megapixels. By that measure, the best smartphone is better than the best DSLR. But is that really true? No. Ask any photographer, and they'll tell you the glass is much more important. Apple has done some good things with their glass, and their flash, and their camera app. It doesn't have as many megapixels as that ridiculous one you see in the ads on TV, but it takes really stunning pictures... So much so that I rarely use my digital camera any more.
2. The screen is not as high resolution as many of its lower priced competitors
When you've got a retina display, it really doesn't matter any more. What's the use of cramming more pixels onto the screen if you can't even see them?
3. There will be some fatal flaw in the design that Apple will offer a work-around (or a smart-assed "You're holding it wrong"esque type of explanation).
That happened *once* and it wasn't exactly fatal. You had to have no case and you had to hold it *just so*. But I certainly won't make excuses for Steve's dickishness.
